“There’s a back story. This is Katharine’s story we’re talking about, but there is a back story in the film, which plays its part, which is mine, and I’ll be quick on this. I had found a source called Mel Goodman, namesake of yours, who was the ex-head of the Soviet desk at the CIA, had kept his clearance. Wise man. And he had told me over two
meetings, A, we know that Saddam Hussein has no weapons of mass destruction. The CIA knows it. Everybody knows it. Two, there is a shadow intelligence operation going on through the Pentagon, all your favorite names on this program—Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle. Your viewers will recall them; I hope not, for their sake, but
some of them will. They’re basically cooking it. They’re cooking this up. It’s not true.

I filed that story seven times to /The Observer/. I could not get it in the paper. I didn’t know why, but I was going nuts. And Rhys Ifans plays the outraged insanity rather well, to my embarrassment, but he does a good job. And so, I was going crazy. It later emerged that the newspaper was collaborating very, very closely with Tony Blair and his sort of
enforcers to keep this kind of thing out of the paper. So, where I had failed with my whistleblower, Mr. Goodman, Martin, with brave and extraordinary Katharine Gun, succeeded.

But this needed finding Koza. Now, I asked around. I asked Mr. Goodman, I asked others, “Can you help me find this guy?” Because you had to get an extension number. They won’t just put you through to a man who doesn’t exist in a place that doesn’t exist.”
–ED VULLIAMY